Time For A Polish Renaissance

Prince John Zylinski
Polish community leader and former London mayoral candidate. Challenged Nigel Farage to a sword duel.

Seventy years of hard graft and the Polish people are still being slated for taking 'English jobs' and only coming to the UK to claim benefits - which is preposterous.

I'm standing up for the Poles and it's about time someone did. Ever since the WW2, when Polish spitfire pilots played a critical, essential role to winning the Battle of Britain, they've felt severely unappreciated and now even more so after the flabbergasting Brexit result.

Poles have contributed an enormous amount to the UK through their tremendous work ethic and it's argued their mission is to teach the British how to work again! For example, Polish builders can do a job in half the time for half the price and they still make more money than English builders do. They're not scared of working 70 hour weeks - that's just normal for them.

This isn't a viewed shared by the whole of the UK. In London particular, people's opinion about EU migrants is very different to those North of Watford (20 miles outside of London) and this was represented in the referendum outcome.

Places like Grimethrope in Yorkshire (an old mining town), where there are huge warehouses with thousands of European staff, feel overwhelmed because there's only 2,000 English people there. The mines were closed 30 odd years ago, a lot of the miners moved on to find work but some stayed and have been on benefits ever since. All of a sudden foreigners arrived and instantly got jobs, not terribly well paid but on the minimum wage, but because of this it's very easy for these people to think they've been invaded!

Unfortunately it takes on a racist overtone and when you're prejudice against somebody you don't let the facts get in the way and so they accuse the EU migrants coming over here to get benefits and ignore the fact they're extremely hard working. These people felt threatened and that's why they voted leave.

A Pole will come over for £19.99, he doesn't know anyone, or the language. He'll turn up to a town like Grimethorpe and he'll have a job within three hours. Three years later, he's buying his own property - and still Polish people are being scrutinised for stealing jobs no one wants - this speaks volumes!

With it recently being reported that Poles have overtaken Indians to become the largest foreign-born contingent in Britain, they need a voice more than ever.

Incredibly, we're still the only community who don't get involved in politics. Other communities like the West Indies, Muslims and Indians have influential people in positions of power that can help them. The Poles don't have this and they've realised the impact it's had on their community but this is where I come in.

I've set up the charity 'Polish Heroes' - which is spearheading the attempt to really deal with every day issues fundamentally post Brexit. We aim to transform the lives of Polish people.

For example, I'm setting up advice bureaux in London to help the individuals who have language problems, or don't know how to cope in serious situations. For instance, if the council wants to take their kids away, if they've been fired or kicked out their homes - all of these daily life problems, I want to support.

I'm here to help, I want to get exposure for the Poles and be the voice of these amazing people. I'm of Polish origin myself, a fluent speaker of the language, successful, a Prince, I talk to the people, and they listen.

I live in Ealing and the other night I went to a small Tesco's shop. I parked my car thirty yards away from this store and was stopped five times, either for someone to say hello, shake my hand or thank me, and one of them said: 'at last we've got a leader, our community has a leader.'

We can now create a Polish army in the UK, not like a traditional army that goes out and kills but an army of love, love for my people and creating trust and friendship with everyone in the UK.

I'm the Polish People's Prince and I'm going to help this wonderful, terrific, hard-working community.